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Reconstructing the climate of medieval Europe

Researchers confirm that the medieval warm period was primarily felt in …

One of the uncertainties in climate science is figuring out how global climate trends translate into local predictions and reconstructions, and vice versa. A classic example of this is the medieval warm period, the time when Vikings roamed the North Sea and North Atlantic in shallow-draft open boats. They settled Greenland and made periodic visits to North America to get timber, placing some short-lived settlements there.

But there's a problem. We have the evidence from the adventures of the Norse, but the change to the European climate was so subtle that not many Europeans actually noted it at the time. Apart from exceptional—in both good and bad ways—years, it has been hard to gain a sense of what the typical climate in Europe was like.

To make matters more uncertain, reconstructions of the global climate show little evidence of the medieval warm period—Europe isn't the globe, after all—and some models show a warm period, while others don't. Local indicators, such as pollen grains and tree rings, show mixed evidence for the warm period. A recent paper, published in PLoS One, focuses on calibrating climate reconstructions using European data, but one side effect of the work is a further indication that the medieval warm period was really a local event.

The actual goal of the paper was not to explore the medieval warm period, but to examine Europe's climate over as large period of modern time as possible, and, in doing so, demonstrate a new way of calibrating climate reconstructions.

Historical climate data must be derived from natural thermometers, called proxies: tree ring widths, pollen distributions, ice core data. All of these must be calibrated to get an absolute temperature. Generally, the way to do this is to extrapolate backwards from where the proxy data and instrumental record overlap. In this paper, the researchers used the similarity between tree ring data and pollen distributions as an internal calibration.

The researchers made use of ice core data and glacial records to compare how their local climate reconstructions compared with both a qualitative record—glaciers advance in cold years and retreat in warm years—and a quantitative, but more global, record. They also made use of the instrument record to provide set calibration points for the proxy data.

Understanding the medieval warm period

The end result is a remarkably thorough investigation of the European climate from 750 CE onwards. With the reconstruction complete, the researchers started validating their data.

First, they compared their data with the documented advances and retreats of a glacier. They found good agreement back to 750 CE—in fact the lack of agreement before 750 CE is why they end the reconstruction there—though there were a few years when the glaciers advanced in warm years and retreated in cold years. They also compared their reconstructions to other reconstructions and noted that although there were differences, they were not unreasonably large.

To try and understand the temperature variations, the researchers then examined correlations between their climate reconstruction and known volcanic activity and solar activity. They found at least one cold year in the following three years after major volcanic eruptions. Generally, warm years coincided with years of high solar activity, and vice versa. The one exception was at the end of the medieval warm period; the researchers speculate that deforestation in Europe may have increased the local albedo enough to compensate for the solar activity.

With all that established, what of the medieval warm period? Well, the weather was certainly warmer in Northern Europe and in the North Atlantic, but it was colder and more variable in Southern Europe. After roughly 1400 CE, the less stable weather expanded to Northern Europe and both areas cooled.

The little ice age, on the other hand, was common to most of the continent. The point is that if one used just Northern Europe's tree ring data, the medieval warm period would look very strong, while Southern European proxies would show no warm period. Only by combining data from throughout Europe can one see just how local the medieval warm period actually was.

This is pretty much what climatologists had concluded already—at least as far as the medieval warm period goes. What's important in the new way is that the temperature reconstruction drawn from the proxies resulted in what seems to be a more accurate temperature reconstruction. Because the calibration was internal, the different proxy data sets could be more accurately combined with each other and used to draw much stronger conclusions than previously.

I'm looking forward to seeing this technique applied to other regional climates.

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Chris Lee
Chris writes for Ars Technica's science section. A physicist by day and science writer by night, he specializes in quantum physics and optics. He Lives and works in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Emailchris.lee@arstechnica.com//Twitter@exMamaku

88 Reader Comments

Before I read anyone's conclusions, I'd like to see published auditable source data (temperature, location & source) for all the data used to draw that conclusion. Might as well throw in the algorithms and other adjustments used to produce the trend analysis. This data should be published on the internet before anyone gives these climatologists a shred of credibility.

It appears to be an interesting and well-constructed graph of several temperature proxies, right up until the middle of the twentieth century when most of the proxies seem to trend down, trend up gently, or remain stable when they are abruptly cut off--just as the tainted hadCRUT data line spikes ever upward. It is the only line which truly looks to indicate non-natural climate change; the rest are within or only slightly above natural variance over a 1000+ year period.

The trending down, after 1900, is on a much smaller time scale than the rest of the graph, and drawing a conclusion based on just that small segment is not a supportable argument to say that the overall trend is down, especially since the trend is back up, especially considering that the overall trends for those data have an RMS that appears to be smaller than the previous 1400 years. The overall trend upward is over a much longer time period, starting shortly after 1800. What you're suggesting is that the trend outlined by ~14% of the data is less relevant than the trend you've focused on, which represents ~3.5% of the data. With RMS's that span time periods encompassing what appear to be ~7% of the data. What you suggest makes no sense, not even off the cuff visually.

SergeiEsenin wrote:

The variance of all data on that graph are obviously trending upward in this graph

This is wrong, on its face. The preponderance of the data and models used show a downward trend or even stability for the period of ~1100-1800.

SergeiEsenin wrote:

A 1000 year period is almost irrelevant on geologic timescales, which makes the significance of even the tainted CRU instrumental line debatable. Archaeological evidence of climate suggests a very different and much more extreme variance in temperatures when we look at a larger 10,000-year timescale. So while the temperature graph in the image is interesting, without the tainted hadCRUT line it doesn't suggest unusual warming--and even with it its significance is debatable since 1000 years may as well be a microsecond. Civilization as we know it has existed for three to five times as long; modern humans as we recognize them have existed for about 200 to 500 times as long; and, ancestral humans who if given a thorough shave and a cheap suit wouldn't look out of place sitting in Congress have existed for 1000 to nearly 2000 times as long as this possibly insignificant 1000-year timeline. A reasonably "modern climate" which despite its regional and cyclical variability could sustain human life (provided we were willing to eat some unusual things, and could avoid being eaten by even more unusual things) has existed for 100,000 times as long; arguably longer.

I'm not sure what you're even arguing here. Civilization as you and I know it, did not arrive until the early 1900's. Please feel free to fall back on living like human beings 100,000 years ago. Or even 5,000. Or even 200. You may have already exceeded the expected life span for each era.

SergeiEsenin wrote:

So, at best it shows a lack of intellectual rigor and ignorance of perspective for climate alarmists to insist that a 50 to 100 year spike on some but not all indicators on a graph which goes back only 1000 years must prove significance above and beyond natural variability.

It would be nice to have measures of the RMS's of these curves, just so that it would be harder for you to be dissembling.

SergeiEsenin wrote:

Call me back when we're in danger of trending outside a graph like this for a sustained period:

Before I read anyone's conclusions, I'd like to see published auditable source data (temperature, location & source) for all the data used to draw that conclusion. Might as well throw in the algorithms and other adjustments used to produce the trend analysis. This data should be published on the internet before anyone gives these climatologists a shred of credibility.

Dear desotojohn,

The authors regret to admit that, when they released this study, they weren't aware of your particular interest in their data and methodology and so did not send you a copy directly. However, they are hoping that your obvious keen interest in the topic has lead you to actually click on either of the only two links in the entire article (excepting the extra-tiny caption link). There you will have already found the full referenced paper, under a Creative Commons Attribution License, complete with a full and detailed description of their methods and data.

If they have now earned that shred of credibility from you, please let them know by post mail (note, however, that this may involve communicating in a way that doesn't just embarrass yourself. maybe sit down for it). The authors eagerly await your reply.

"Supervolcanoes" have been blamed for multiple mass extinctions in Earth's history, but the cause of their massive eruptions is unknown.

Despite their global impact, the eruptions' origin and triggering mechanisms have remained unexplained. New data obtained during a recent Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) expedition in the Pacific Ocean may provide clues to unlocking this mystery.

To explore the origins of these seafloor giants, scientists drilled into a large, 145 million-year-old underwater volcanic mountain chain off the coast of Japan.

IODP Expedition 324: Shatsky Rise Formation took place onboard the scientific ocean drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution from September 4 to November 4, 2009. Preliminary results of the voyage are emerging.

"'Supervolcanoes' emitted large amounts of gases and particles into the atmosphere, and re-paved the ocean floor," says Rodey Batiza, marine geosciences section head in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Ocean Sciences, which co-funded the research.

The result?

"Loss of species, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and changes in ocean circulation," says Batiza.

"During the 20th century, however only anthropogenic forcing can explain the exceptionally high temperature rise."

Duh! Have you ever heard of urban heating? Temperature readings taken outside of urban areas over the last 100+ plus years show virtually no climate temperature change.

Plainly and simply wrong. Data from rural stations show the same trend as data from urban stations. Also, satellite data shows a warming trend. Are you going to say that this is because the satellites are orbiting within giant urban areas? Nobody at this point in the game should be ascribing warming trends to the well-known Urban Heat Island excuse. There is simply nothing to it. I don't know why anybody is expected to take you seriously when you spout outright bull like this. Seriously. You might like to come off as informed and reasonable but you're not, and just a few seconds of Googling will show that you're not for the new folks and people who have been around in climate threads before already know you're full of it. Your pretense is paper thin, and I pity you if you aren't aware of that. To paraphrase, "This comment of yours is nothing but poltically motivated drivel. This is what you get when you first establish a point, and then ask science to find ways to support it."

Funny that a flawed and supposedly flawless graph should come to the same conclusions.

It's not just "a flawed" graph and a singular "supposedly flawless" graph, it's the original Mann et al paper agreeing broadly with about a dozen other independent studies, not all of which used dendrochronology proxies. Mann himself did another study without them and it still came to the same conclusion. This is what it means for results to be repeatable, which is usually an indicator that you're on the right track in science. Yet to you that's 'funny.'

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I see the data used for this uses the infamous tree ring proxy data that has proven to be a compete and utter failure from 1960 forward. But just because it doesn't match the periods when we can measure it we are supposed to believe it is flawlwess when we couldn't measure it. Right.

It appears to be an interesting and well-constructed graph of several temperature proxies, right up until the middle of the twentieth century when most of the proxies seem to trend down, trend up gently, or remain stable when they are abruptly cut off--just as the tainted hadCRUT data line spikes ever upward.

Explain exactly what you mean by "tainted."

Quote:

A 1000 year period is almost irrelevant on geologic timescales... and even with it its significance is debatable since 1000 years may as well be a microsecond.

And geologic timescales are almost irrelevant on astronomical timescales, but are you seriously arguing that 1000 years of climate data is utterly insufficient to identify climate trends? Exactly how much time do you think is needed, and why? And why do you think climate scientists are ignorant of the necessity for such a timescale? Why do you think 1K years of climate data is as good as a microsecond when studying the climate?

zato_ichi wrote:

Every climate article on Ars is AGW alarmism propaganda.

And then he helpfully suggests that Ars put up articles based on Richard Lindzen's essays. You can't make this stuff up, folks.

And then he helpfully suggests that Ars put up articles based on Richard Lindzen's essays.You can't make this stuff up, folks.

That makes no sense. Are you feeling ok?

One may ask why there has been the astounding upsurge in alarmism in the past four years. When an issue like global warming is around for more than 20 years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence and donations are reasonably clear. So, too, are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of carbon dioxide is a dream come true. After all, carbon dioxide is a product of breathing itself.

And then he helpfully suggests that Ars put up articles based on Richard Lindzen's essays.You can't make this stuff up, folks.

That makes no sense. Are you feeling ok?

One may ask why there has been the astounding upsurge in alarmism in the past four years. When an issue like global warming is around for more than 20 years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence and donations are reasonably clear.

Well, that and in protecting the environment.

zato_ichi wrote:

So, too, are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of carbon dioxide is a dream come true. After all, carbon dioxide is a product of breathing itself.

Sigh.

CO₂ is indeed a product of breathing. That's not the problem - the CO₂ that you've just breathed out was the result of oxidising some organic carbon compound, most likely glucose or a fatty acid, which you got from a plant, or from an animal which got it from a plant. The plant produced that glucose by fixing CO₂ from the atmosphere via the wonders of photosynthesis. Like so many things in nature, it's a cycle, driven by the sun. You need not be concerned about a pasty bureaucrat in some darkened room steepling his fingers and saying “Eeexcellent. Soon, I shall force zato_ichi to wear a respirator so we can monitor his CO₂ emissions!”.

What we're concerned about is digging up hundreds of millions of years worth of carbon that had been removed from the atmosphere and the carbon cycle and burning it in the space of 200 years.

Interestingly absent from this agenda analysis are the poor oil, coal, and natural gas companies. These poor, bililon dollar businesses are totally defenceless against this scourge of agenda-driven madness, and all they want to do is make people happy!

The "Hockey Stick Graph" was a particular graph from a particular paper that was based on flawed analysis. But essentially the exact same conclusion (and similar graph) has been independently reproduced many times by other groups, and no such flaws have been found in their work. So, everytime you see a curve like that above and you think "discredited hockey stick", you are simply showing the overwhelming power of FUD to negatively affect scientific discussions in public.

This is often said, but it is false. You can only produce a hockey stick chart from proxy data if you do two things

(i) include proxies, the famous bristle cone pines and gaspe cedars, or maybe sediments used upside down, that are generally agreed in the peer reviewed literature not to be indicators of temperature

(ii) use illegitimate statistical techniques (the famous so called PCA technique of MBH, not in fact PCA at all, but some strange home grown statistical method which they called PCA, which in lay terms consists of using the mean of a subset of the series, when if doing PCA you must use the mean of the whole series).

The article is unhelpful in another respect. The question about the MWP is not whether it was the same in Northern and Southern Europe. The question is whether it occurred in the Far East, in Latin America and all around the world.

If you go to CO2Science, you'll find literally hundreds of peer reviewed references which point to its being global.

Now, the existence of a global MWP, and perhaps RWP before that, are not particularly decisive for AGW. Raising the atmospheric ppm of CO2 could still be a bad thing to do, whether they existed, or not.

Their importance perhaps is that they became a bete noire of the movement, and the determination to pretend that they did not exist led to the bad science and bad behavior that was exposed in the Climategate emails. This did a real disservice to climate science because it diverted attention from a very important topic, the extent and cause of non-anthropogenic climate change.

The best evidence at the moment is that they were real and were global. The best evidence on CO2 and climate change at the moment seems to be that the jury is out. There are arguments that rising CO2 will produce long term warming, there are other arguments that it will lead to negative feedback which will largely cancel out its warming effects.

The science on feedback, and thus on the long term effects of any forcing from any source, is not settled. This is mainly a matter of getting a better understanding of the role of clouds, ocean warming and cooling, and water vapor. We do not understand these properly, and pretending that the MWP and RWP did not happen globally will not make it more settled.

If we don't understand this, of course, this affects your judgment of whether drastic action has a good risk/reward ratio. Like, should we fill the upper atmosphere with something to dim the sun to cool the planet down? Well, it has risks as well as paybacks, and not understanding how the climate works, before we mess with it, has real risks. A bit like filling your diesel engine with gasoline, before you understand exactly how diesels work!

It appears to be an interesting and well-constructed graph of several temperature proxies, right up until the middle of the twentieth century when most of the proxies seem to trend down, trend up gently, or remain stable when they are abruptly cut off--just as the tainted hadCRUT data line spikes ever upward. It is the only line which truly looks to indicate non-natural climate change; the rest are within or only slightly above natural variance over a 1000+ year period.

The trending down, after 1900, is on a much smaller time scale than the rest of the graph, and drawing a conclusion based on just that small segment is not a supportable argument to say that the overall trend is down... What you're suggesting is that the trend outlined by ~14% of the data is less relevant than the trend you've focused on, which represents ~3.5% of the data. With RMS's that span time periods encompassing what appear to be ~7% of the data. What you suggest makes no sense, not even off the cuff visually.

What are you even talking about--I did not base my conclusions on a small segment of the graph, I merely pointed out that the data points at the current end of the graph, with the exception of the hadCRUT line, are in no way out of line with what we see in the MWP on the same graph. The tainted CRU instrumental line is the only one with a steep upward trend--remove it, and that graph of temperature proxies would in no way support the conclusion that AGW has made us trend significantly warmer than nature would explain.

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SergeiEsenin wrote:

The variance of all data on that graph are obviously trending upward in this graph

This is wrong, on its face. The preponderance of the data and models used show a downward trend or even stability for the period of ~1100-1800.

That quote you misattribute to me is not even by me. What are you talking about? I know it's a common tactic for climate alarmists to put words into climate realists' mouths, but this is ridiculous.

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SergeiEsenin wrote:

A 1000 year period is almost irrelevant on geologic timescales, which makes the significance of even the tainted CRU instrumental line debatable.... Civilization as we know it has existed for three to five times as long; modern humans as we recognize them have existed for about 200 to 500 times as long...

I'm not sure what you're even arguing here. Civilization as you and I know it, did not arrive until the early 1900's. Please feel free to fall back on living like human beings 100,000 years ago. Or even 5,000. Or even 200. You may have already exceeded the expected life span for each era.

You have an alarming lack of perspective on how long civilization has existed, and how long it has taken it to slowly flower to this level. You really think "civilization as you and I know it" started in "the early 1900's"? Really? As a student of Classics I can tell you that if you walked the streets of any reasonably prosperous Roman city 2000 years ago, it wouldn't be much different from a reasonably prosperous city today (except for the brothels, bath houses, and slavery--two of which would be improvements over today's American cities). If you were lucky enough to be in the very small middle or upper classes, your home and family life would be remarkably similar to what they are today, and your daily routine would probably be healthier and at least as enjoyable--most of civilization's advancements have been through increasing the size of the middle classes and lubricating social mobility, making more of us into middle class folks with leisure time. The life of such a middle class person has changed little in substance for millennia; it's having access to such a comfortable life which has improved. Even many lower-class tenement-dwellers had indoor plumbing and niceties we contemporary folks often forget are ancient--blame the early Christians and their distaste for worldly learning for the disappearance of such things.

As for life expectancy in the Roman Empire, it was little different from what it was in the U.S. circa 1900. What makes people hear misleading statistics like life expectancy of 25 or 30 in the ancient world is the high instance of infant mortality and early childhood disease; looking at a table like this:

One quickly realizes that as long as you made it past infancy to be 5 years old, you could expect to live to a decent middle age. The ancient world even had sophisticated surgical instruments over 2000 years ago which were not matched again until the 19th century, and the availability of effective herbal contraceptives and abortions for safe and sane family planning would not be matched again until the 20th.

If you were unlucky enough to be in the lower classes in the city, your life would still probably be better than it would've been as a factory worker in the early 20th century U.S., and if you were lower class rural folk your life would have been largely identical to that of any farmer prior to the invention of mechanical threshers and the like in the 1800's.

Going back further than 2000 years ago, civilization would indeed start looking increasingly different and exponentially more people would be the subsisting poor or in bondage, but if you were lucky enough to live in the right place and time you could enjoy a life not too different from that of a middle or upper class individual of the 1600s as early as 4000 years ago. And that's just in the Mediterranean; if we include parts of Asia, then what we would recognize as civilization is an even older development. So yes, civilization as we would recognize it is several thousand years old (and it advanced remarkably little in the 1500 years before the Enlightenment, regressing in some ways). Sorry for the digression away from science and into humanities, but the idea that civilization is somehow a recent development of the last few centuries is vexing.

Quote:

SergeiEsenin wrote:

So, at best it shows a lack of intellectual rigor and ignorance of perspective for climate alarmists to insist that a 50 to 100 year spike on some but not all indicators on a graph which goes back only 1000 years must prove significance above and beyond natural variability.

It would be nice to have measures of the RMS's of these curves, just so that it would be harder for you to be dissembling.

And yet, you have failed to level an accurate criticism. What am I specifically lying about?

Quote:

SergeiEsenin wrote:

Call me back when we're in danger of trending outside a graph like this for a sustained period:

And then we'll talk about real scientific significance rather than manipulation of data and timescales to fit nonscientific beliefs.

Okay, how about the fact that the current CO2 content of the atmosphere is agreed to be ~390ppm (@UltimateLemon), while the Vostok core data stops at 280ppm?

Finally, an accurate criticism. I meant to refer specifically to the temperature graph, not the CO2 graph. We are in no way outside of the temperature range we'd expect from natural variance when we plot against such large timescales; indeed, if anything there's been an overall decline from the slightly higher temperatures of the Holocene Climatic Optimum but temperature has been remarkably stable over the last 10,000 years or so, and looking at the bigger picture along such timescales we should be far more concerned about the likelihood of entering a cooling phase than the possibility of AGW. I'd much rather have AGW be true and get a 0.5 to 2 degree artificial push than a return to ice age temperatures--the former likely leads to the loss of some relatively insignificant islands and coastlines and a greater expenditure on fortifying coastlines and dealing with storm and sea damage, while the latter likely leads to greatly diminished agricultural output and mass starvations followed by a long-term decrease in Earth's carrying capacity for the human population and, as economies contract, a likely decline in civilization and technical progress.

But as there's no scientifically rigorous and untainted evidence of AGW it's a moot point. There may be a warming trend since the mid-1800s, but we'd really need another 150 years of future temperature data to be able to say whether it's a statistically significant deviation from expected natural variability. We certainly are above the natural CO2 ceiling indicated by ice cores, but even if we take the ice core CO2 record as accurate (there are legitimate questions I've mentioned in other threads), atmospheric CO2 doesn't correlate directly with temperature once we affect the natural concentrations and is mediated by various still-little-understood interactions. Even old blog entries explain the fundamentals of the ice core CO2-temperature correlations with more basic accuracy and honesty than certain climate alarmists:

The problem is that the oil companies (or should I say energy companies) are in fact funding pro AGW research, not the other way around. For instance, guess who sponsored the CRU? Shell and BP.

Anyone who doesnt think its unusual that AGW has become such a mania is deluded. Never in the history of man have people been concerned about things other than taxes and the price of food. And suddenly when the authors of Superfreakonomics point out some of the mathematical and statistical errors in AGW, they are derided, insulted and scorned, instead of their research taken at face value. When someone points out something wrong with AGW, they are compared to a Holocaust denier, and called an idiot, no matter the validity of their arguments. If you dont think there is something wrong with that, then you are no scientist. The purpose of science is to inform and enable, and we better our science through research, reason and debate. Not through accepting the status quo and not questioning authority. That any pro AGW person derides and scorns any skeptic is a proof that this has gone from being a scientific issue into a social and political phenomenon like something out of a Ghost in the Shell series (see: Standalone Complex and Individual Eleven, mass hysteria).

I dont think any AGW "denier" thinks we ought to pollute more or destroy more of the rainforest. Rather, we think (at least I do), if you are going to make policies and laws that affect the entire Earth, you had better be sure that your science is correct. And right now, there are just too many holes and discrepancies for that to be so (Climategate, anyone? How does witholding data and manipulating results to fit a preconceived conclusion sit with you? And this from the CRU.).

Religion is defined as: 1. a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Items 2, 3 and 4 are the actual points. It has become exactly as the days of Galileo when opposing the mindset of the entrenched is evil and you are a fool to doubt the widespread belief that the universe revolves around man.

It is amazing that they use localized solar warmth to try and prove medieval warming but dismiss it for modern days. The "wise" scientists speaking of things with a certainty of a proved fact when it is a shakey theory.

I know you will attack me - heretic, unclean be cast out.

Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed (at least outwardly) to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture",[10] and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Just a little history of where a closed mind takes you, man and the earth still the center of the universe - to some.

The problem is, the only people qualified to judge who is or not a crank are professional climatologists. They know the literature, they know what the data really means, they understand analysis techniques, etc. So, how many climatologists disagree with the AGW consensus? Only one I know of: Richard Lindzen.

The reason conspiracy theories are so believable is because they boost the ego: it's not my incompetence and prejudices that prevent me from understanding the best research in an area, it's a global conspiracy of green extremists. This is a defining characteristic of cranks. Some of these cranks may even have PhDs in other fields, and may fancy themselves smarter than those soft-science climatology weaklings.

So, what if you're an intellectually honest AGW skeptic, how do get your point across? Well, there's nothing wrong with asking questions. RealClimate is meant precisely to answer such questions:

You havent addressed my central point though, which is why is it such a sin to doubt AGW? If the science was so unassailable, why did the CRU withhold its data?

climateaudit.org is a site that I visit. One of the contributors actually is involved in the peer review process of academic journals concerning AGW (or climate change, to use the PC term), and through what has been exposed in climategate, its become visible how journal articles that disagree with the consensus are being suppressed. No, thats not hyperbole or conspiracy theory, its fact. [url=http://climateaudit.org/2010/04/11/overpecks-hammer/]this[/url illustrates that point nicely.

Besides which, as I said in my post, I dont think there is a global conspiracy. I think there is mass hysteria/religion. Big difference.

* It's not a sin to doubt AGW, but it's a sin to talk out of one's ass. It seems that most would-be skeptics are grossly unqualified.

* Thanks for link. It does appear that IPCC does have a governance problem which should be corrected.

* A religion becomes a conspiracy when it suppresses dissent by clandestine means. Religions that are not theocracies can be openly criticized, and parallel intellectual communities can grow. The anti-AGW crowd seems to be trying to develop a parallel community, but it doesn't seem to be gaining much traction.

So this leads to two questions: Does the global warming consensus suffer under inconsistent and counterfactual claims, like religions? And, are the faithful suppressing meritorious criticisms towards their nonsensical views ?

Without clear evidence in the affirmative, to an outsider AGW doubt is more denial than skepticism.

As an aside, it's a shame we have the worthless talking heads we do on television, rather than debates on topics like these between. I would love to see a 1 hour debate/discussion between Lindzen and Pachauri on PBS.

The problem is, the only people qualified to judge who is or not a crank are professional climatologists. They know the literature, they know what the data really means, they understand analysis techniques, etc.

That isn't how science works (or ought to work). You may not know the details of a particular measurement technique or data set, or the going wisdom on some set of hypotheses… but if you have adequate training, you should be qualified to examine the mathematics or statistics or basic physics or chemistry (or whatever) behind a study in an "outside field." At the very least you should be able to evaluate the general quality of the argument (and how it answers its own hypotheses or any other questions it attempts to answer).

Furthermore, climate science is not a single field -- it's practically a poster child for "interdisciplinary physical sciences." Most people you think of as climatologists do not have a degree in "climatology," since those programs are fairly recent. Even if a "climate scientist" said X about, say, biogeochemical feedback, I'd also assign some weight to Y (which disagrees with X) as raised by a specialized biogeochemist.

Who cares who is a crank and who can judge a crank etc.? Let's see the arguments themselves.

It's highly unlikely that a lay person can do "adequate training" -- that's precisely what a PhD is for. That said, your point about interdisciplinary work is well-taken; I have yet to see any climate skepticism along these lines. Any links?

Finally, the reason it matters who is a crank or not is because it takes time and effort to read other people's work. Qualifications are necessary (if not sufficient) means to pare down your reading list.

Therein lies the problem. Many skeptics are in fact qualified to debate climate change, but when they do, they are derided as lunatics or idiots. Some of them have spent years in the field, and have relevant backgrounds in statistics. But that doesnt mean their opinions are valued at all in the climate change field; rather, it seems that because they haven't accepted the "consensus", they are hated. Do you think that is right?

I could go on. The point is, there are dissenting opinions on climate change, but these are being kept out of scientific journals by unprofessional scientists. If the science was so robust, why is discourse censored like this? I dont understand it. Surely its bulletproof? I mean, there can be no dissenting opinion right?

I make a big fuss about the CRU because much of the data used to "prove" climate change derives from there, and the problem is that, until the climategate incident, they would only distribute the adjusted data, not the raw data. This conveniently mean no one else in the world had a raw data set from which to begin an analysis.

That said, your point about interdisciplinary work is well-taken; I have yet to see any climate skepticism along these lines. Any links?

It depends what you mean by "climate skepticism" (and the tendency on both sides has been to avoid defining this clearly).

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Finally, the reason it matters who is a crank or not is because it takes time and effort to read other people's work. Qualifications are necessary (if not sufficient) means to pare down your reading list.

If I feel it absolutely necessary to respond to someone's claims, then of course it means investing the time and effort to read what they wrote (or linked, I suppose). Obviously if someone has some special expertise, for example, a dendrochronologist makes a strong claim about tree ring proxies that I had not previously heard of, then I might be more interested in learning from the publication. But if it's just standard responses to standard arguments then does it really matter who wrote it?

at least 7 of the 11 have relevant qualifications (PhDs in geosciences, atmospheric science, ocean climate, and paleoclimatology). A few don't have complete info.

Regarding responses to people who may or may not be cranks, there's only so much time in the day. I myself prefer to spend my time collaborating and interacting with others i know who are qualified. I demarcate a certain amount of time for public outreach, and then I answer questions from all comers (that, and at parties).

at least 7 of the 11 have relevant qualifications (PhDs in geosciences, atmospheric science, ocean climate, and paleoclimatology). A few don't have complete info.

(Please note that I edited my comment above.)

Are you saying that 4 of 11 do not have relevant qualifications?

Edit noted.

P.S.: Please realize that I am arguing that they are all "qualified" to comment, but just as with anyone else their comments are useful or not depending upon their scientific merit.

Edit of my own in response to your edit:

Quote:

I myself prefer to spend my time collaborating and interacting with others i know who are qualified. I demarcate a certain amount of time for public outreach, and then I answer questions from all comers (that, and at parties).

I agree that it's possible for anyone to have a scientifically meritorious question. But it's quite unlikely that someone not already published in the field to pose such meritorious questions. In my own field, I have yet to get a decent question from anyone who is not at least taking graduate classes.

That's why as a non-expert in climate science, I choose to listen to those with qualifications in the field, i.e a PhD. I suppose that there are other forms of qualification, i.e., a long peer-reviewed publication record in the field or a prestigious position, but that gets fuzzier.

McIntyre attended the University of Toronto Schools, a university-preparatory school in Toronto, finishing first in the national high school mathematics competition of 1965.[1] He went on to study mathematics at the University of Toronto and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1969. McIntyre then obtained a Commonwealth Scholarship to read philosophy, politics and economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduating in 1971.[1][2] Although he was offered a graduate scholarship, McIntyre decided not to pursue studies in mathematical economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1]

McIntyre worked for 30 years in the mineral business

And Ross McKitrick has a PHd in economics and is a Professor of the subject I believe. He's been doing research into climate change for the past decade it seems.

I'd appreciate a response to the links I posted, highlighting further deficiencies in the peer review process. That any papers with dissenting opinions existed at all, with the merit to be published but for manipulation, should say something to you. I can dig out the author's names, if you want.

But this "which side has more PHds" is pointless. The credentials dont matter, the quality of their arguments do. Based on the evidence we have, we can say there are dissenting voices in the scientific community. We know this because they tried to have papers published that were rejected due to an improper review process. But why suppress them? I dont get it, the science is beyond question isnt it?

* My argument is that to non-experts, qualifications should matter, because non-experts are not in a position to judge what is or is not sound research. Are McIntyre and McKitrick published in peer-reviewed journals? What is their citation count? If they don't have a distinguished publication record, that's pretty damning.

* Your links regarding email exchanges are largely hearsay; without the full conversations from both sides it's not good evidence.. What's of greater concern is Jones allegedly misrepresenting the Swedes' position on releasing their data -- this gives an appearance of something to hide. Same with Acton's ham-handed damage control.

Anyway, I cannot tell how pure or rotten the peer review process is in the climate community. In my field, particle physics, everything shows up first on arXiv anyway. It's easy to see what's cranky and ignore it by reading the abstracts, and then triage everything else. Peer review is then somewhere between a formality and a vetting by reviewers trusted by the journal editors, whose identities are well-known.

EDIT: I should add that in physics we always have competing experimental groups, so that there are multiple data sets for similar measurements. The LHC has two experiments that basically do the same thing, ATLAS and CMS. This redundancy is expensive, but indispensable.

McIntyre attended the University of Toronto Schools, a university-preparatory school in Toronto, finishing first in the national high school mathematics competition of 1965.[1] He went on to study mathematics at the University of Toronto and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1969. McIntyre then obtained a Commonwealth Scholarship to read philosophy, politics and economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduating in 1971.[1][2] Although he was offered a graduate scholarship, McIntyre decided not to pursue studies in mathematical economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1]

McIntyre worked for 30 years in the mineral business

He did what? (Edit, I see what you are saying. And...? )

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And Ross McKitrick has a PHd in economics and is a Professor of the subject I believe. He's been doing research into climate change for the past decade it seems.

I can find three papers by him, one of which is in a known BS journal, one of which (the GRL paper) was addressed in other, more recent publications by the authors they are discussing, and the third was resoundingly panned as bad science starting from a pre-ordained position and trying to twist science to fit it (Preordained conclusions produce bad science)

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I'd appreciate a response to the links I posted, highlighting further deficiencies in the peer review process. That any papers with dissenting opinions existed at all, with the merit to be published but for manipulation, should say something to you. I can dig out the author's names, if you want.

I am really sorry but I have to nag about that review – Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting - to support Dave Stahle’s and really as soon as you can. PleaseKeith

Yeah, nothing to do with needing to reject a peer reviewed paper. Nothing at all. Nothing to see here people, move along.

I am really sorry but I have to nag about that review – Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting - to support Dave Stahle’s and really as soon as you can. PleaseKeith

Yeah, nothing to do with needing to reject a peer reviewed paper. Nothing at all. Nothing to see here people, move along.

You conveniently left out the reason and what little further explanation is available. I'll assume it was a typo on your part and add it for you and everyone else to see:

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Okay, today. Promise! Now something to ask from you. Actually somewhat important too. I got a paper to review (submitted to the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences), written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression) is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc. They use your Tornetrask recon as the main whipping boy. I have a file that you gave me in 1993 that comes from your 1992 paper. Below is part of that file. Is this the right one? Also, is it possible to resurrect the column headings? I would like to play with it in an effort to refute their claims. If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically, but it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a practical sense. So they do lots of monte carlo stuff that shows the superiority of their method and the deficiencies of our way of doing things, but NEVER actually show how their method would change the Tornetrask reconstruction from what you produced. Your assistance here is greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will let Tornetrask sink into the melting permafrost of northern Sweden (just kidding of course).Cheers,Ed

You also listed 4 other links, where did they thoroughly discuss peer review?

It appears to be an interesting and well-constructed graph of several temperature proxies, right up until the middle of the twentieth century when most of the proxies seem to trend down, trend up gently, or remain stable when they are abruptly cut off--just as the tainted hadCRUT data line spikes ever upward. It is the only line which truly looks to indicate non-natural climate change; the rest are within or only slightly above natural variance over a 1000+ year period.

The trending down, after 1900, is on a much smaller time scale than the rest of the graph, and drawing a conclusion based on just that small segment is not a supportable argument to say that the overall trend is down... What you're suggesting is that the trend outlined by ~14% of the data is less relevant than the trend you've focused on, which represents ~3.5% of the data. With RMS's that span time periods encompassing what appear to be ~7% of the data. What you suggest makes no sense, not even off the cuff visually.

What are you even talking about--I did not base my conclusions on a small segment of the graph, I merely pointed out that the data points at the current end of the graph, with the exception of the hadCRUT line, are in no way out of line with what we see in the MWP on the same graph. The tainted CRU instrumental line is the only one with a steep upward trend--remove it, and that graph of temperature proxies would in no way support the conclusion that AGW has made us trend significantly warmer than nature would explain.

My points is that the data does show an upward trend after 1800, and that using a false claim of data being cut off (look carefully, more than one those other trend lines extend just as far the hadCRUT line) to imply that the last 50 years (again, 3.5% of the data) is supporting a current downward trend.

SergeiEsenin wrote:

jcolbyk wrote:

SergeiEsenin wrote:

The variance of all data on that graph are obviously trending upward in this graph

This is wrong, on its face. The preponderance of the data and models used show a downward trend or even stability for the period of ~1100-1800.

That quote you misattribute to me is not even by me. What are you talking about? I know it's a common tactic for climate alarmists to put words into climate realists' mouths, but this is ridiculous.

A 1000 year period is almost irrelevant on geologic timescales, which makes the significance of even the tainted CRU instrumental line debatable.... Civilization as we know it has existed for three to five times as long; modern humans as we recognize them have existed for about 200 to 500 times as long...

I'm not sure what you're even arguing here. Civilization as you and I know it, did not arrive until the early 1900's. Please feel free to fall back on living like human beings 100,000 years ago. Or even 5,000. Or even 200. You may have already exceeded the expected life span for each era.

You have an alarming lack of perspective on how long civilization has existed, and how long it has taken it to slowly flower to this level. You really think "civilization as you and I know it" started in "the early 1900's"? Really? As a student of Classics I can tell you that if you walked the streets of any reasonably prosperous Roman city 2000 years ago, it wouldn't be much different from a reasonably prosperous city today (except for the brothels, bath houses, and slavery--two of which would be improvements over today's American cities). If you were lucky enough to be in the very small middle or upper classes, your home and family life would be remarkably similar to what they are today, and your daily routine would probably be healthier and at least as enjoyable--most of civilization's advancements have been through increasing the size of the middle classes and lubricating social mobility, making more of us into middle class folks with leisure time. The life of such a middle class person has changed little in substance for millennia; it's having access to such a comfortable life which has improved. Even many lower-class tenement-dwellers had indoor plumbing and niceties we contemporary folks often forget are ancient--blame the early Christians and their distaste for worldly learning for the disappearance of such things.

As for life expectancy in the Roman Empire, it was little different from what it was in the U.S. circa 1900. What makes people hear misleading statistics like life expectancy of 25 or 30 in the ancient world is the high instance of infant mortality and early childhood disease; looking at a table like this:

One quickly realizes that as long as you made it past infancy to be 5 years old, you could expect to live to a decent middle age. The ancient world even had sophisticated surgical instruments over 2000 years ago which were not matched again until the 19th century, and the availability of effective herbal contraceptives and abortions for safe and sane family planning would not be matched again until the 20th.

If you were unlucky enough to be in the lower classes in the city, your life would still probably be better than it would've been as a factory worker in the early 20th century U.S., and if you were lower class rural folk your life would have been largely identical to that of any farmer prior to the invention of mechanical threshers and the like in the 1800's.

Going back further than 2000 years ago, civilization would indeed start looking increasingly different and exponentially more people would be the subsisting poor or in bondage, but if you were lucky enough to live in the right place and time you could enjoy a life not too different from that of a middle or upper class individual of the 1600s as early as 4000 years ago. And that's just in the Mediterranean; if we include parts of Asia, then what we would recognize as civilization is an even older development. So yes, civilization as we would recognize it is several thousand years old (and it advanced remarkably little in the 1500 years before the Enlightenment, regressing in some ways). Sorry for the digression away from science and into humanities, but the idea that civilization is somehow a recent development of the last few centuries is vexing.

And this is all relevant how? Are you implying that somehow Roman era civilization shared even 1/10th of the technology we have in our hands since the turn of the 1900's? Or the impact the use of that technology has had and is continuing to have on the global environment? Or that the Roman Empire had 1/10th of the current world population of human beings? Or that the Roman Empire *was* all of civilization in the past 2000-4000 years? I would call this dissembling.

The civilization as you and I know since the 1900's has been radically altered by:

Modern PhysicsModern ChemistryModern MetallurgyModern Industrial PracticesStandardized parts and factory aassembly techniquesMass communications within real-time, seconds, minutes or day, of an eventPoint to point communications in real-timeModern MedicineModern PsychologyElectricityElectronicsNuclear Technologies...

These are all technologies that contribute to our ability to affect climate on massive scales. What sense does it make that you're trying to insist that somehow civilization as it was 2000 or 4000 years ago is recognizable or livable by anyone born and raised with in the last 100 years? So why bring it up? You're dissembling.

SergeiEsenin wrote:

jcolbyk wrote:

SergeiEsenin wrote:

So, at best it shows a lack of intellectual rigor and ignorance of perspective for climate alarmists to insist that a 50 to 100 year spike on some but not all indicators on a graph which goes back only 1000 years must prove significance above and beyond natural variability.

It would be nice to have measures of the RMS's of these curves, just so that it would be harder for you to be dissembling.

And yet, you have failed to level an accurate criticism. What am I specifically lying about?

See above.

SergeiEsenin wrote:

jcolbyk wrote:

SergeiEsenin wrote:

Call me back when we're in danger of trending outside a graph like this for a sustained period:

And then we'll talk about real scientific significance rather than manipulation of data and timescales to fit nonscientific beliefs.

Okay, how about the fact that the current CO2 content of the atmosphere is agreed to be ~390ppm (@UltimateLemon), while the Vostok core data stops at 280ppm?

Finally, an accurate criticism. I meant to refer specifically to the temperature graph, not the CO2 graph. We are in no way outside of the temperature range we'd expect from natural variance when we plot against such large timescales; indeed, if anything there's been an overall decline from the slightly higher temperatures of the Holocene Climatic Optimum but temperature has been remarkably stable over the last 10,000 years or so, and looking at the bigger picture along such timescales we should be far more concerned about the likelihood of entering a cooling phase than the possibility of AGW. I'd much rather have AGW be true and get a 0.5 to 2 degree artificial push than a return to ice age temperatures--the former likely leads to the loss of some relatively insignificant islands and coastlines and a greater expenditure on fortifying coastlines and dealing with storm and sea damage, while the latter likely leads to greatly diminished agricultural output and mass starvations followed by a long-term decrease in Earth's carrying capacity for the human population and, as economies contract, a likely decline in civilization and technical progress.

But as there's no scientifically rigorous and untainted evidence of AGW it's a moot point. There may be a warming trend since the mid-1800s, but we'd really need another 150 years of future temperature data to be able to say whether it's a statistically significant deviation from expected natural variability. We certainly are above the natural CO2 ceiling indicated by ice cores, but even if we take the ice core CO2 record as accurate (there are legitimate questions I've mentioned in other threads), atmospheric CO2 doesn't correlate directly with temperature once we affect the natural concentrations and is mediated by various still-little-understood interactions. Even old blog entries explain the fundamentals of the ice core CO2-temperature correlations with more basic accuracy and honesty than certain climate alarmists:

Considering that there is some inkling of the of the global implications of doubling or tripling the content of CO2 in the global atmosphere, doesn't that give you any pause? I, personally, don't think the temperature data is the scary part, but is part of a collection of facts that, when put together, lead to a reasonable hypothesis that driving that much extra CO2 (and other gasses) into the atmosphere, could have non-linear effects on the global climate. So you're willing to sit back and say, "hey, civilization has been around for 2000 years as we know it, no problem!"

The problem is, the only people qualified to judge who is or not a crank are professional climatologists. They know the literature, they know what the data really means, they understand analysis techniques, etc. So, how many climatologists disagree with the AGW consensus? Only one I know of: Richard Lindzen.

The reason conspiracy theories are so believable is because they boost the ego: it's not my incompetence and prejudices that prevent me from understanding the best research in an area, it's a global conspiracy of green extremists. This is a defining characteristic of cranks. Some of these cranks may even have PhDs in other fields, and may fancy themselves smarter than those soft-science climatology weaklings.

So, what if you're an intellectually honest AGW skeptic, how do get your point across? Well, there's nothing wrong with asking questions. RealClimate is meant precisely to answer such questions:

This attitude is part of why climatologists' views of AGW constitute a religion, not a set of scientific hypotheses. Paleontologists, for example, welcome the input and related expertise of biologists and biochemists, geologists and geochemists, even engineers and physicists, and incorporate any useful data from overlapping areas into their own research. That is how science should work: it should be open and interdisciplinary, not closed to the "unclean outsiders" and anything they may offer which overlaps but contradicts established dogma. That climatologists "don't even bother" with the overlapping work of non-climatologists, even when they have PhD's in overlapping fields, is a situation anathema to anything I can recall in the modern history of science. Your post just smacks of religious dogma, not a scientific mind, and could just as easily be an anti-Reformationist screed:

Hypnos7 might as well have wrote:

The problem is, the only people qualified to judge who is or not a heretic are professional Catholic clergy. They know the literature, they know what the Bible really means, they understand analysis techniques, etc. So, how many Catholic clergy disagree with the theological consensus? Only one I know of: Martin Luther.

The reason conspiracy theories are so believable is because they boost the ego: it's not my incompetence and prejudices that prevent me from understanding the best research in an area, it's a global conspiracy of Catholic bishops. This is a defining characteristic of heretics. Some of these heretics may even have religious orders in other churches, and may fancy themselves smarter than those soft-religion Catholic weaklings.

So, what if you're an intellectually honest Catholic skeptic, how do get your point across? Well, there's nothing wrong with asking questions. The Papal Bulls are meant precisely to answer such questions:

The Vatican.

If you still don't get satisfaction, do your own analysis with the Vatican-authorized Latin Bible and publish it:

* Do you know of any cases when climatologists ignored or dismissed expert knowledge from related fields? As others have mentioned, climatology is indeed rather interdisciplinary.

* I agree that arguments from authority are less than ideal. But that's the only alternative when the people consuming the knowledge are not experts.

In any event, I don't see any AGW deniers being burned at the stake. They are free to promulgate their own views, and they do so. But they seem to be having little success in refuting the "dogma."

And, what precisely is wrong with would-be skeptics doing their only analysis? If you doubt someone's conclusions, you try to duplicate their work and see if you arrive at the same place -- Scientific Method 101.

OK, let's start by looking at the discredited hockey stick (allegedly) in the NOAA link. Most of the climate info excet the recent "instrumental KRUT" seem basically smooth with variations. The colored lines actually mostly taper off (about 1990?) even below the approx. 1930 peaks. The alarming trend is from two lines - the black "KRUT" line and the thick grey PS2004 line.

The PS2004 line seems to have no correlation with reality, if reality is all the other lines. So what is it telling us, other than it's version of reality is much different than anyone else's? It starts well below them all, and smoothly trends upward.

The black KRUT line seems to be running with the pack until about 1975 then decides to take off on its own. Again, it bears no relation to reality as depicted by the other lines. SO who's right? Black and grey, or coloured?

I think we should stop burning so much fossil fuel because (a) there's a good chance it has a demonstrable effect on the environment, but (b) we're going to run out soon; when supplies start to get tight, we'll need those alternative technologies.

Regardless, perusing records from the last hundreds of thousands of years shows that out current warm spell is a brief interlude, much of the past until about 10K to 20K years ago was much colder. Not sure I want to go back there. The last 5 years have NOT been remarkably warm, they've been about average. the standard pro-GW line is yes, but, the last decade is the warmest on record. Tur, but mainly because of the 2000-2005 temperatures.

Finally, we don't really know WHAT causes ice ages, little ice ages, or all the other climactic variability. We see that the sunspots disappeared and there seems to be a correlation between the Mauder min. and cooling; we see that the current sunspot cycle is significantly behind where it should be, including one of the longest sunspot dry spells in recent history...

Who is this 'we' you speak of? Most publishing climate scientists don't seem to be so completely unsure of anything. An entertaining excerpt: "It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes." But maybe those scientifimacists need more internet cred, as proposed by desotojohn above.

And then he helpfully suggests that Ars put up articles based on Richard Lindzen's essays.You can't make this stuff up, folks.

That makes no sense. Are you feeling ok?

I'm highlighting the hypocrisy of you criticizing Ars for your perception of its slanted propaganda coverage while you recommend Ars starts covering the slanted propaganda put out by Lindzen. I am saying that Lindzen is the opposite of Ars coverage, not for being unbiased and genuinely scientific but for being totally biased and patently wrong-headed. You just want Ars to give even more him even more advertising for his puffery than he already gets from the Wallstreet Journal, George C. Marshal Institute, and the Heartland Institute. Lindzen has more than enough public outlets for his insipid denialism already, let him duke it out in the scientific press if he really feels like he has a case. Last time he did, he was shot down rather quickly.

Quote:

One may ask why there has been the astounding upsurge in alarmism in the past four years.

One may ask why recognition of the need to take action on climate change is dubbed "alarmism." It is, in fact, mainstream in the global scientific community and especially the climate science community, not some kind of political fringe movement.

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When an issue like global warming is around for more than 20 years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue.

How long have fossil fuels been in use? How many trillions of dollars do these industries rake in annually? It's hilarious that you feel the "alarmists" are subject to sins that apply more forcefully and accurately to the moneyed interests opposing action on climate change.

Quote:

So, too, are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of carbon dioxide is a dream come true. After all, carbon dioxide is a product of breathing itself.

How many times are you chuckleheads going to keep repeating this nonsense mantra? Do you think the government is going to tax your exhalations? Do you think the fact that you exhale a toxic gas makes that gas any less subject to regulations for environmental protection? Hydrogen sulfide is a smelly component of your flatulence, but I don't see the government trying to put taxes on your butt-breath while tackling H2S emissions under anti-pollution regulations. You're full of hot air.

Ancalagon wrote:

@Wheels of Confusion

The problem is that the oil companies (or should I say energy companies) are in fact funding pro AGW research, not the other way around. For instance, guess who sponsored the CRU? Shell and BP.

The CRU participates in peer-reviewed research for the consumption of scientists, whereas policy think-tanks and the "CO2 Science" group are aimed directly at the public and policymakers. They are not subject to the rigorous reviews of genuine science that the output of the CRU is. Fossil fuel industries often try to have it both ways buy nominally funding some aspects of climate science and reform or spinning their efforts as going towards alternative energies while also heavily spending money into anti-climate change efforts and anti-reform lobbying, in a practice called "greenwashing." Exxon is more practiced at this than either Shell or BP, and it's difficult to find a large-sized anti-climate change lobby or think-tank that doesn't get money from Exxon.

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Anyone who doesnt think its unusual that AGW has become such a mania is deluded. Never in the history of man have people been concerned about things other than taxes and the price of food. And suddenly when the authors of Superfreakonomics point out some of the mathematical and statistical errors in AGW, they are derided, insulted and scorned, instead of their research taken at face value.

The actual controversy surrounds their framing of the solutions to global warming, the basic facts and quotes they got utterly wrong, and their assertions about global cooling. They got so much wrong, from misrepresenting scientists and their views to misrepresenting how global warming works (waste heat from solar cells?) that it's just garbage. Why should anybody "take it as fact value?"

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When someone points out something wrong with AGW, they are compared to a Holocaust denier, and called an idiot, no matter the validity of their arguments.

Examples, please.

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If you dont think there is something wrong with that, then you are no scientist.[/qutoe]Frankly I'm not a scientist. On the other hand I largely don't see any kind of religiosity around AGW, and find it hard to believe that such a condition could persist in the scientific community for so long with all the data we've been getting for the past five or so decades. I'm just not convinced by the arguments of "AGW IS A NON-SCIENCE RELIGION!" I've spent years watching real non-science religious campaigns, and AGW just doesn't match up with those patterns.

Quote:

That any pro AGW person derides and scorns any skeptic is a proof that this has gone from being a scientific issue into a social and political phenomenon like something out of a Ghost in the Shell series (see: Standalone Complex and Individual Eleven, mass hysteria).

Because in science nobody ever derides and scorns anybody else, right? Because your anti-AGW critics don't compare legitimate climate scientists to Goebbels and Popes and accuse them of being part of some non-science political/financial fraud, right? You're living in a fantasy world.

How to discredit a science: Get yourself some credentials, publish a paper or two, have someone find a problem with your work (intentional or not).

There. That seems to sum up how US news treats science, especially in regards to AGW. Doesn't matter that so many graphs look like the "discredited" Mann hockey stick, some still believe that all similar graphs are also flawed. Doesn't matter that the only forcing that could have caused the recent temp trend is CO2, many will pull out "sunspots" and "precession" and have not a clue what they are talking about.

And yeah, I'll accept the few valid voices that disagree as noted skeptics, but those with their "pocket guide to climatology denial" are starting to annoy me.

Where are the deniers who think that the science has it all wrong -- in the opposite direction? I think the Earth is warming at a more alarming rate than predicted. Shouldn't there be an equally irrational group that believes the scientists are hiding or fudging their results downward?